Today In History...

In 1291 The Swiss Confederation is formed.
In 1714 Britain's Queen Anne dies and is succeeded by George I.
In 1785 Caroline Herschel is the first woman to discover a comet.
In 1789 U.S. Customs begins enforcing the Tariff Act.
In 1790 The first U.S. census is completed, showing a population of nearly 4 million people.
In 1852 The first black church, Zion Methodist, is established.
In 1873 Inventor Andrew S. Hallidie successfully tests a cable car he had designed for the city of San Francisco.
In 1876 Colorado becomes the 38th U.S. state.
In 1894 The first Sino-Japanese War erupts, the result of a dispute over control of Korea; Japan's army routed the Chinese.
In 1903 The first coast-to-coast automobile trip (from San Francisco to New York) is completed.
In 1914 Germany declares war on Russia at the onset of World War I.
In 1936 The Olympic games open in Berlin with a ceremony presided over by Adolf Hitler.
In 1943 Race-related rioting erupts in New York's Harlem section, resulting in several deaths.
In 1944 An uprising breaks out in Warsaw, Poland, against the Nazi occupation. The revolt that lasted two months before collapsing.
In 1946 President Truman establishes the Atomic Energy Commission.
In 1950 The Guam Territory is created.
In 1957 The first solar heated commercial building is completed in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
In 1957 The U.S. and Canada reach an agreement to create the North American Air Defense Command, known as NORAD.
In 1958 After 26 years at 3 cents, first class postage rises to 4 cents.
In 1960 Pentel, the first practical felt-tip pen, goes on sale.
In 1966 Charles Whitman, 25, climbs the University of Texas tower and goes on a shooting spree killing 15 people before he was gunned down by police.
In 1971 Richard Petty becomes the first million-dollar stock car driver.
In 1973 George Lucas's "American Graffiti," a film set in the early 1960's, is released.
In 1975 A 35-nation summit in Helsinki, Finland, concludes with the signing of an accord dealing with European security, human rights and East-West contacts.
In 1979 The peanut-eating record of 100 nuts is set at 46 seconds.
In 1984 The U.S. wins the silver medal women's team gymnastics at the Los Angeles Olympics with the help of perfect routines by Julianne McNamara on the uneven parallel bars and Mary Lou Retton on the vault.
In 1985 The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approves economic sanctions against South Africa, by a vote of 380-to-48, but Senate conservatives were able to force postponement of final action.
In 1986 Abilene, Kansas, records 100mph winds during a thunderstorm.
In 1986 The Senate Foreign Relations Committee votes, 15-2, in favor of strict economic sanctions against South Africa to protest apartheid.
In 1987 Mike Tyson unified the heavyweight title (IBF, WBA and WBC) by defeating Tony Tucker.
In 1987 27 die and 200 are injured when a tornado strikes Edmonton, Alberta.
In 1989 A pro-Iranian group in Lebanon which had threatened to kill American hostage Joseph Cicippio, extends its deadline a day after another group released a videotape showing a body said to be that of hostage William R. Higgins.
In 1989 The Polish parliament begins a historic power struggle which results in the communists losing power one month later.
In 1990 In Trinidad, dozens of Muslim militants surrender and free 42 hostages they had seized six days earlier in a failed bid to overthrow the government.
In 1991 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir accepts a U.S. formula for Middle East peace talks with the Arabs.
In 1991 President Bush, visiting the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, urges Soviet republics to show restraint in their demands for more autonomy.
In 1992 The U.S. Supreme Court permitted the Bush administration to continue returning Haitians intercepted at sea to their Caribbean homeland.
In 1992 Gail Devers wins the women's 100 meters and Linford Christie takes the men's 100 meters at the Barcelona Summer Olympics.
In 1993 St. Louis is besieged by the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, which had swelled to record levels after months of flooding in nine Midwestern states.
In 1994 Supporters of Haiti's military rulers declare their intention to fight back in the face of a U.N. resolution paving the way for a U.S.-led invasion.
In 1995 Westinghouse Electric announces a $5.4 billion deal to buy CBS.
In 1996 An Italian court clears former Nazi SS Captain Erich Priebke of most serious charge in World War II massacre of 335 civilians.
In 1996 At the Atlanta Olympics, Michael Johnson breaks his world track record by more than three-tenths of a second, winning the 200 meters in 19.32 seconds.
In 1997 The National Cancer Institute reports that fallout from 1950s nuclear bomb tests had exposed millions of children across the country to radioactive iodine.
In 1997 President Clinton lifts a 20-year-old ban on the sale of high-performance aircraft and other weapons to Latin America.
In 1999 A heat wave that had gripped the nation since mid-July and killed nearly 200 finally breaks.
In 2000 Zimbabwe's government confirms plans to take more than half of all white-owned farming land without compensation and redistribute it to 500,000 poor black families.
In 2000 A U.S. military court in Germany sentences Army Staff Sgt. Frank Ronghi to life in prison without parole for sexually assaulting and killing Merita Shabiu, an 11-year-old ethnic Albanian girl, while on peacekeeping duty in Kosovo.
In 2001 Pro Bowl tackle Korey Stringer dies of heat stroke, a day after collapsing at the Minnesota Vikings' training camp.
In 2003 A suicide bomber rams a truck filled with explosives into a military hospital near Chechnya, killing 50, including Russian troops.

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